


A Novel of the Fates as a Young Love

by TheShwazzy



Category: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass (2007)
Genre: A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Dark, Dom/sub, Eve!Lyra, F/M, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Memory Loss, Philosophy, Poe - Freeform, Romance, Smut, The Fates - Freeform, lots of literature quotations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 10:15:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3847117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShwazzy/pseuds/TheShwazzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen Daedalus is working as a young author when he receives an unexpected visitor that changes his world and gives him hope when he didn't know he needed it. May change ratings in further chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first like actual for real fanfic *squeee!* Please be nice. I'm not at all attempting to write like Joyce *bows*, I'm just writing what I love. This was going to be a one-shot, but I'm doing chapters right now...we'll see how it goes. Here my Lyra Belacqua (The Golden Compass) is a combination of Luna Lovegood in a way, or how I imagine Lyra to have matured as. Her last name is a little nod to the Fates, and, well gosh I had to match it to Daedalus! Please enjoy, although I'm 500% sure no one will ever read this. I'm sure Portrait is a small/nonexistent fandom, but here I am.
> 
>  
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Do I look like an Irish modernist or the owner of the incredible His Dark Materials Trilogy? No, of course not. I only own the plot and the particular order of these lovely words.

He was just coming up the stairs when he felt an odd stillness descend upon his being. The dust he had disturbed on the peeling wooden steps seemed to spin stilly in space, floating nowhere, caught in the very same light which caused his pausing. He took a moment to drink the moment in and commit it to his mind before he again pursued his destination. Like a hastily returned cookie lid, his door stood ajar, and the same light which seized the dust particles poured past the knob. He swung the door wide just as a rustle sounded within and beheld an intruder like that of a spectre. A thin black figure curved over his manuscripts in their haphazardly elegant mountain on the desk. A single delicate claw rested upon a particular paper, like a crow testing the strength of a branch. He could not move.

“ _I have reached this lands but newly._ ” A voice arose from behind the black wide-brimmed woolen hat like that of a honeyed cello hum. “ _From a wild weird clime that lieth, out of space._ ” The spectre turned. “ _Out of time_. Hello, Mr. Daedalus.”

Stephen’s glacier stature sank a few more years into the stillness of ice ages under the eyes of his burglar. A young girl, with tresses of shining dark hair and eyes of weathered age smiled at him with simple abandon. The more Stephen looked, the more he noticed to be unworldly and unsettling. The air around did not hold his breath as he did, on the contrary, she seemed to be good friends with the spiraling sunny dust, with the alarming sense that she could at any second become one with them in a flurry of inky feathers.

To his credit, Stephen also noticed the numbered bronzy key sticking out of her left shoe.

“You’re the new neighbor next door,” He said, and at once, the air welcomed him as one of their own and thawed the crystals between them.

“Lyra Moirai.” She replied, lifting her fingers from his ink-stained paper with care. Stephen raised an eyebrow.

“ _In flagrante delicto_ ,” Her head and voice lowered slightly, and it seemed the streaming light inched towards him, much more tentatively than her open smile. “ _Caught in the act._ ”

“You certainly surprised me.” Stephen swallowed drily. The grace of her tiny arched eyebrow made him scramble for courtesy and simultaneously wonder at the climb. “A delightful surprise, I assure you, Miss Moirai.”

She laughed freely, and he was fleetingly reminded of the laughter of young children at Clongowes, and marveled at how much more pure and unmalicious her laughter sounded.

“I am no miss. Please just Moirai, or Lyra if you must.” She glanced back at the virtual mountain, still in the early and messy days of construction. “I must say I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but I should probably get to know you as well.” She briskly headed for the door, her earlier mooniness preserved only by her earnest smile and odd eyes. She came quite close to him in the doorway, and the dust particles swirled furiously around them.

“ _The stars began to crumble and a cloud of fine stardust fell through space...unfolding itself sin by sin, spreading abroad the baelfire of its burning stars and fading slowly, quenching its own lights and fires._ ” The pale stars of their eyes burned each other. “ _The cold darkness filled with chaos_. Oh, Mr. Daedalus,” She said, her eyes brimming with restful happiness, “Did I enjoy it.”

His still face smiled since the first instant their encounter. “Good day, Moirai.”

***

“Why do you wear black all the time?” Was all Stephen said the fourth time the coal of her presence appeared to blot his dreary flat.

“It is proof that I have sinned, Daedalus,” Moirai replied brazenly, unfolding herself from the couch like a paper doll. Over the steam from her tea the simple smile widened into ecstatic amusement at his apparent shock.

“I didn’t think you were about all that sort of thing,” was his vague but safe response, schooling his features into socially acceptable interest.

“I find people are much more comfortable when you publicly declare your own soulful demise,” she said, with a slightly dark and brassy tone that reminded Stephen of a stern string instrument. “It makes them feel better about themselves.” Unable to help himself, Stephen abandoned his own personal crossword puzzle and came to the armrest of the sofa.

“I can’t imagine people looking down on you like that.” She finally looked at him.

“I can’t tell if you’re serious or sarcastic.”

“You just seem like one of those good people.”

“Now that was sarcastic.” She returned her tea with good humor.

“No, really, like one of those simply, albeit rare...actually good people.”

“People aren’t simply good Daedalus. There’s always a motivation.”

He laughed at that. “We still are such strangers, but why do I feel like I’m arguing the wrong side of this argument. Their motivation can simply be they want others to be happy.”

“My dear Daedalus, I think the phrase “fast friends” applies to us well. And I am flattered, but I certainly was not always one of those people, and I do have that simple motivation.”

They sat almost knee to knee now, her tea steam rising as white smoke from porcelain, like an omen.

“ _Have I two roads, I would have chosen a third._ ” A sadness glanced her moony eyes but is quickly replaced with her usual ease. “Everyone has a past, Daedalus.”

“ _I cannot speak or write these words without unrest of spirit_.” For the first time in Moirai’s presence, Stephen really allowed himself to dare. “Speak, Moirai, and tell all.”

**  
*****

They went to a nondescript cafe and got coffees. She told him of her upbringing at Jordan College in Oxford, with the most erratic schooling from scholars of all sorts. She painted a picture of wholefully malicious children that had all sorts of cliques and mischief, that fought in canals and clay beds against Gabriel College or ganged up on the brickburner’s children with college and townies alike. The wild beast that ran and climbed and lied and played pranks was so unlike her now that it was wholly unbelievable. “They used to call me Silvertongue,” she said fondly, “Because I could lie with talent.” While she mentioned her father was a great researcher and highly regarded by Jordan, her female parentage echoed hollowly. “Then I joined the circus!” she said with an exclamation of delight which refused to meet her eyes. Stephen sensed many gaps in her story, but didn’t probe further. He deduced her abrupt departure from the beloved college was more her absent mother’s doing than anything else. However, he let her tell him however she wanted to tell it, content with being trusted to know more of his mysterious spectre.

“What do you do these days?” was his solo moment of prying, which really wasn’t prying at all.

“Mostly read.” She shrugged. “I’m a good reader so I edit other’s stuff and dabble a little every now and then, but not enough to live on. Sometimes I find a choreographer whose has a project for a bit, but I really don’t do contortion acts anymore.” Stephen found this hard to believe as he observed her ankle twitch and her curled fingers set down the coffee cup with inherent ease of the space around her. She was incredibly aware of any and all movements and she didn’t even know it.

“Do you live with anyone?” He dredged up the courage to ask. He kept questioning his hesitancy, but could only reason to himself this unshakable feeling: she was a shiny new bird, ripe for peeling open and discovering, but if he was too indelicate she might burst away into the abyss.

“I would be living with my other half if she weren’t touring with the Royal right now,” she said wistfully. “Ballet company,” she added at his evident confusion. “Completely platonic,” she added again, smirking slightly. “‘My other half’ really is the most accurate expression, if not a bit misleading sometimes.”

“But no other company?” Stephen said delicately.

“Books are best.” Lyra said evasively. Stephen could catch a hitch of insecurity fall on her face, and attempted to backtrack.

“Books indeed are good company. I meant, I mean-”

“Do you have friends in the area?”

“Devin and Cranly, although it has been a long time since I’ve seen them. Most days it’s just Mike my editor,” he smiled ruefully. She’d caught him there, but he wasn’t going to back down. “No other friends from the circus?” He watched the relaxed position she’d been in evaporate as her spine erected itself and her shoulders snapped down. Suddenly incredibly poised, she stared hard at him. He held his hands up in surrender. “Fine, fine, another day.” He waited a long beat until she finished her drink in one slow sip. Her seemingly effortless smile was gone but he wasn’t sure if she was actually angry. She seemed unused to the kind of personal attention he was paying her.

“There’s a play in town tonight.” She fidgeted. He refused to believe that was normal. She was clearly a dancer to the bones, a fidget meant something. After a long pause she inhaled and pinched her nose.

“Who’s the playwright?”

“Beckett.” He leaned in a little and saw her shoulders relax slightly out of her dreadfully straight posture. She smiled, not her earnest smile, but at least her old eyes smiled too.

“I can live with that.” She said.

“Excellent.” He said briskly.

****

***

When Stephen decided it was his turn to barge into her flat, he strode in to see Lyra balancing precariously by her hands on two rods protruding from the floor, gripping their wooden square tops. Her legs were extended above her head and curved in a sharp backbend, her toes curling over close to the top of her head.

“That looks incredibly difficult.” Stephen titled his head upside down to see her face.

“It does require a certain amount of focus,” Lyra replied in a strained voice, slowly straightening her legs. She seemed to waver a moment, then solidly shifted to one side and lifted an arm into the air. Stephen whistled low. Lyra grabbed the stick again and lowered her body slowly right side up. She pushed sweat from her face.

“I got you something,” Stephen held out to her a dark velvet pouch. It had been there, sitting so innocently yet mysteriously behind the sheen of the window pane, nestled in inky depths as he passed by the shop in a ridiculous hurry. It had arrested his haste and enchanted him immediately, and he knew despite the oddness of its object, he had to unite the two beings.

Lyra silently unfolded the black flap and drew out an astonishingly complex and weighted golden compass.

Stephen had to almost lean in to believe that he had seen it, but the sharpest and quickest emotions bombarded Lyra’s features: her eyes swelled with tears at an alarming speed, the skin of her face fell in the most heart-tugging despair, and a gasp for breath as if drowning all occurred within a tiny instant. Not a second later all the instant held was gone, and she was smiling her open smile again, chuckling a little.

“What a queer device,” she said, turning to him with the most unguarded  guarded eyes he had ever seen in his life. “Where did you get it?”

“That strange little store by the library,” Stephen said with a grin. “I thought it suited you. _Smooth and smiling faces everywhere, but ruin in their eyes_.”

“How very perfect indeed.” Lyra suddenly accosted him with an accusing look. “Stephen Daedalus, are you courting me?!”

“I don’t see that I have much choice,” Stephen said honestly.

“No, I suppose you don’t.” And with that casual reply she was up on the sticks again, and Stephen settled into her desk with a pen as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to Lyra's type of contortion act, which is, of course, Russian Canes: Contortion Act


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A peek behind the inevitable fronts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will make way more sense if you have read the Golden Compass trilogy (so sorry if you haven't).   
> Sorry this chapter is so short.

He was counting the cracks in his ceiling again. After a wild romp with Cranly, he had washed the scent of sex from his skin in the pathetic dribble of an ancient showerhead, and was now being actively unproductive. His depressingly Van Gogh flat rang with emptiness, despite the cascades of defiled white sheets that had been thrown in the heat of the afternoon’s passions. Cranly’s visit had been such a surprise and physical shock; he had shown him his latest work without thinking, without realizing it would strike up such an argument. One of their worst in years. It had escalating to Stephen throwing Cranly against the table and almost dislocating his shoulder. Cranly’s grab for his crotch may have been more of a move of survival than lust, but nevertheless accrued the desired outcome. Stephen had fucked him into the table, clothing rumpled carelessly aside, ties bent backwards and buttons askew. Cranly’s hands ravaging his hair was the only ownership Stephen allowed him, other than his ear splitting moans. The cracks in the ceiling suddenly came into full focus. They had been loud. Stephen sat up, his notebook and dirty pencil falling off his chest. Moirai, Lyra, would have heard. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about Lyra in general. He definitely felt some sort of attraction to her, although he hadn’t felt that way towards women in ages. It certainly wasn’t strong enough to stop him from pounding Cranly senseless on the desk. Her odd charm irritated him at moments, her ancient sadness interested him, and her powerful spirit set him on edge. He wasn’t afraid of her. He wasn’t. He just felt out of control, sometimes, in their interactions. Although he was always careful to let her guide the conversation, allowed her to move about his flat at her will, he was still in control. He placed the key in the underside of an old plant pot where he knew she would look, he caught the undercurrents of her facial expressions before she spoke. Stephen remained a step ahead of her, if not only by inches.

He wasn’t even sure why he bought her that weird compass thing. The shopkeeper had been an odd but nice lady with a weird pet bird on the counter, which upon his query was an “alpine chough”.

“A girl misses her home sometimes, you know?” She has said as he snooped for antique pens, his original purpose.

“I suppose,” he said distractedly, his back to the counter, brushing dust of pen nibs.

“She’s forgotten a lot, but she’s still the same. The same Eve that walked out of that garden.” Stephen stilled at the Biblical reference, and closed his eyes against the memories that echoed of ruler whacks and hellfire.

“You’re no Will.” he turned and saw the woman offer a nut to the bird. “But you may be her best hope.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She pulled the velvet case out from under the counter. He raised an eyebrow.

“It’s for Lyra.”

***

Stephen woke abruptly to darkness and weak moonlight oozing through the curtains. The murmur of voices flitted to his ears and, without thinking, he rolled from the bed and padded across the bare rug. He pressed his ear to Lyra’s wall and was surprised to hear her familiar voice marred by an odd accent and rough language.

“Well I don’t know how the fuck he got it, Pan, but he gave it to me like it was nothing. No. No I en’t noticed. I did a check but he en’t been ill, he would have if he had a daemon here. I know. Shut up Pan, I’m better now en’t I? I just never knew...Pan it’s so strange. It’s… fuck, Pan, I don’t know. This day…” her voice trailed off into huffs of annoyance. Stephen could practically hear her crossing her arms and stamping her foot, but it was so unlike the Lyra he knew. Her accent and rough language made his eyes gleam.

He almost yelped in shock when a most peculiar voice replied.

“Maybe he’s our way to Will.” There was something indescribable about the voice. It wasn’t human, yet it simultaneously had the quality of Lyra’s voice if she had been male. Which was ridiculous.

“Stephen?” Lyra replied doubtfully. The sound of his first name from his lips made his gut tighten. “I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I wasn’t me. But, Pan, he’s got that same gleam as Will. I see it sometimes. He acts like a stiff polite writer, but I know better. He’s holding back a savage nature. I don’t know if it’s power like Asriel’s, or like Metatron’s, or like Will’s. But he watches me.” Stephen’s breath shortened as her voice got lower. “He puts the key where I can find it. Oh, Pan, I wish you had been watching out for me.”

There was silence then a scratching noise. Stephen waited, motionless, quivering with his whole being.

“I heard him today.”

Stephens heart stuttered.

“It was so...savage…” There was no doubt her tone, and nor was there doubt about what it was doing to him.

“So violent.” Her voice was fainter now, and, lost in this haze of whatever was going on, Stephen strained blindly against the wall. The door creaked and he whipped around.

A marmot/cat-looking animal was already in the room, blinking at him with black eyes. Lyra stood in the doorway.

Her eyes swam with emotion and her thin shoulders hunched. She looked crushed, but not beaten; a warrior emerging from a psychological battle at the height of her glory. The air crackled with electricity and the dust swirled like tiny stars in the moonlight.

Stephen straightened.

“How did you know I was awake.” Her eyes flickered to the marmot.

“Pan got in your room.” If Stephen was surprised, he didn’t show it.

“Who are you?” Their eyes silently challenged each other. Stephen took a step forward and Lyra’s frame shook slightly.

Stephen hissed in a dark whisper, “Who are you, Lyra?”

Lyra lifted her chin and spoke with frightening dignity.

“I’m Lyra Belacqua, Lyra Silvertongue, reader of the alethiometer. I come from Oxford. My friends are Iorek Byrnison, King of the Armored Bears.” Stephen stepped closer and her voice grew stronger.

“I’m the daughter of Lord Asriel and Ms. Coulter, who broke into the Republic of Heaven and killed Metatron. I was tempted by Mary Malone, and offered fruit to my love, Will Parry, carrier of the subtle knife.” She looked Stephen in the eyes as they stood centimeters apart.

“I fulfilled my role as Eve and renewed Original Sin to the world.”

Stephen grabbed Lyra’s wrists and slammed them against the door, pulling their bodies flush against each other. Stephen smiled and his eyes burned.

“And what a wonder you are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And into the darkness we descend.  
>  Next chapter: SMUT. I promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Quotations:  
> 1\. Dream-Land, Edgar Allen Poe  
> 2\. A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce  
> 3\. In the Presence of Absence, Mahmoud Darwish  
> 4\. A Portrait…, James Joyce  
> 5\. Jean-Paul Sartre


End file.
